Turn 99 - Fireman on the WD: Gin Train

 Following hot on the heels of turn 98, a full day on the WD, comes a evening gin train. This is a two-trip service where passengers are served with four gins, mixers, snacks and dessert while we take a gentle trundle through the North Norfolk countryside.

The loco we are rostered to is the WD Austerity 2-10-0 that I was on yesterday, and we are relieving the daytime crew. It's late up to Weybourne though, because today the BR Standard 9F 92203 has returned to the railways from a visit to the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway, and our loco has hauled it up to Weybourne.

Fireman Carl from the day crew cleans the fire and I help clear the ash pan. Cleaning the fire always leaves it pretty cold, so Driver Peter shovels some coal into the back while I load our bags onto the footplate and make sure my dampers are closed.

Climbing aboard I open the blower to bring the fire on, and fire the back corners some more as we leave - we are very late and have around 20 minutes to get down to Sheringham, hook on and take the first train up. By the time we are ready to go I have a good fire, hot enough not to need any more attention until we crest Dead Man's - I've got a full glass as well. Before we go though, the catering team appear with our plate of snacks - some cold meat, crackers, cheese and olives.

We make two round trips and as we prepare to depart for the second down trip, Driver Peter leaves the footplate to 'make some enquiries' and returns with two portions of cheesecake.

Before we go, I jump off to take a picture of the WD's safety valves. I run this loco against the red line a lot of the time and rarely have problems with it blowing off - and someone has suggested that's because it's fitted with the old-fashioned spring type  - it clearly doesn't, since these are the pop-type safety valves used on the other BR Standards.

On the way down, while checking the fire I'm surprised to find a brick out of the arch on the grate:

The rest of the arch is in place:

There's nothing we can do about that until the morning. 

We come down into Platform 2 at Sheringham, and the service train is ready in platform 1 for the next day - so we can't run around. We wait until the station pilot has pulled off the stock, and we head back to Weybourne.

On the way up, we have to stop a couple of times to put out sleeper fires, These are invariably 'end of life' sleepers where the centre is very rotten and fragmented - ideal kindling, but our ash pan is again not sealing. I put them out with my clean water bucket, filled from the fireman's side injector.

Disposal goes well, and I have the boiler full over the top nut when it's stabled. There's no way I can get that firebrick off the grate though.